Create a Fancy Floral Arrangement

You know those beautiful floral arrangements you see in model homes and high-end stores? Well, the closest I’d ever come to making one of them was trimming the stems on some monochromatic mums and placing them in a vase on my table. Pretty? Yes. Impressive? I think not. So when Walmart gave me a chance to learn, hands-on, how to make a professional quality floral arrangement, I jumped at the chance. The best part? It’s really easy to modify your arrangement to fit any theme, color scheme or occasion.

Case in point: I made the colorful, summery arrangement shown above during a recent trip to Walmart headquarters in Bentonville, AR. The color of the flowers and the cuties in the bottom of the vase make it perfect for warm months, but I knew that for the holidays, I’d want an arrangement to complement the rest of my holiday decor in shades of purple, gold and white. Here’s how I did it:

You’ll Need:

Transparent glass vase

Plastic bowl (needs to fit the top of your vase)

Floral foam

Something to fill the bottom of the vase

1-2 dozen flowers

Greenery (to fill in spaces)

Sharp scissors or garden shears

You can get everything you need at Walmart, or you can use things you already have around the house.

Start by filling the bottom of your glass vase with whatever you chose. I opted for the same shatterproof Christmas ornaments I used in T-Shirt Box Cheltenhammy wreath project because I wanted a nice splash of purple. Before you get to the top, put the plastic bowl in the top of your vase to make sure it will fit with the top of the bowl nearly flush to the top of the vase.

Cut a piece of floral foam that can fit inside your bowl.

You’ll want to completely saturate it so it will keep the flowers alive. To do this, fill your sink with water. Put the piece of foam in the water, allowing it to float on top. As it becomes saturated, it will sink. It needs to soak for about 2 minutes before it will be ready to use. When it’s ready, put it in the bowl.

Next, you’ll prepare your flowers for placement. Remove the leaves and trim the stems at an angle to about 6″ long.

Push the stem of the first flower directly into the middle of the floral foam. This will be starting point for the dome shape you’ll eventually create.

Add flowers to create a dome shape from that central point. Some flowers will stick out toward the side and some diagonally. When you insert one flower, turn the vase 180 degrees and place another flower opposite it on the other side of the arrangement, like this:

You’ll still need to be careful as you’re making holes in the floral foam, because once you make a hole, it’s there for good. Push the flower stem as deep into the center of the foam as you can.

As you’re building the dome shape, continue to turn the vase to make sure that you’re making it as symmetrical as possible. It sounds more difficult than it is. When you’ve added all the flowers, you should wind up with something like this:

Notice you can still see the foam and the bowl, albeit barely. The point is not to be able to see them at all. This is why you’ll need greenery, which you can buy or, like me, cut from plants near your home.

You can add as much greenery as you would like. Just try to cover up the bowl and foam as best you can.

That’s it! Really, that’s all there is to it. Making a beautiful arrangement doesn’t require perfection. Just a little bit of patience and a willingness to experiment. You can use anything from cranberries to decorative stones, marshmallows, corks, cinnamon sticks or tinsel inside your vase, and flowers of any color.

This arrangement will live on the entry table right at my front door.

Do you plan to try making a floral arrangement? If you do, I’d love to see how it turns out!

DISCLOSURE: I am a member of the Walmart Moms program. Walmart has provided me with compensation for sharing my floral arrangement with you. Participation is voluntary and, as usual, all opinions are my own.

I love the idea of the ornaments in the vase! I took a florestry class in high school and I loved it! It’s hard work. I always came home with beautiful flower arrangements for my house.Amanda recently posted { Insurance Claims }

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I’m Jennae Petersen, and I’m a lot of things. A wife, a mother, a graphic designer and a connosieur of beautiful things. Green Your Decor was borne of my frustration with finding beautiful things that were also eco-friendly, and inspiration to reduce my own carbon footprint and help others do the same. LEARN MORE